Well, this was a terrible movie to watch...
...on a day when I'd been fighting off some kind of tension headache.
What, did you think I was going to do what a small number of assbutts did by contributing to the loss of this movie's perfect 100 on Rotten Tomatoes? Perish the thought. Though the two Amazing Spider-Man movies remain my favorite Spidey-films ever purely because of how much Andrew Garfield mirrored my own personality - and because of how much he and Emma Stone, as Gwen Stacy, formed the platinum standard for fictional ships for my own writing to aspire to - Into the Spider-Verse, our film debut for numerous incarnations of webslingers including the great Miles Morales, is a smaller, and yet bigger, masterpiece of cinematic awesome.
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| Also: god DAMN, I wish those kicks of his weren't so spendy IRL. |
I do feel, though, that some of what people complained about with the Amazing movies, people didn't complain about here at all. Not so much the fact that this one's an origin story movie - it's primarily Miles' origin story, after all, not Peter's; besides, every time we meet another Spider-Person from across the Spider-Verse, we get their own origin story until eventually the narrative starts getting tired of the repetition and makes it a point of condensing it each time. Kinda like the "If-Then-Else" episode of Person of Interest with the iconic "simplifying simulation" scene.
But back to the point I was trying to make, though: people have, in the past, blasted other Spider-Man movies for having too many characters to go around. You can sorta make that argument best for Spider-Man 3, which this movie does make fun of at least once by dredging up an animated parody of the infamous "dancing in the street" scene. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 still gets tons of flak for the same kind of issue, and there I'm still scratching my head about it to this day. I mean, yeah, maybe it was a shameless attempt at building a Sony-based Spider-Man cinematic universe in direct opposition to Marvel's. Maybe it was incredibly boneheaded on Sony's part when they really should've just incorporated Garfield!Spidey into the MCU like nature intended. And Venom gets a lot of the same criticism, that I've seen - though I haven't seen that movie yet and can't judge it in any way. But yeah, Into the Spider-Verse is loaded for bear with tons of characters to follow, and a pretty clear launching pad for its own arm of a new Sony Spider-Verse. It's just odd to me that people thought SM3 and TASM 2 should've been less complex, and yet this movie's complexity is one of its very selling points and it works?
But hey, that's not at all to knock on Into the Spider-Verse. What this movie gets right is just about everything, let's be honest. The complexity of the plot. The rich diversity and representation befitting a New York setting - one major shortcoming of Spidey-films up to 2014 being excessively white casting. All the personalities of all the Spideys - no less than two different OG-style Peter Parkers with histories closely modeled on Maguire!Spidey in particular (I'm just waiting for the one who gets most of the spotlight in this movie to catch it a lot of flak from the fat community, though), Miles, Spider-Gwen, Peni and her robot, Spider-Noir, and Spider-Ham. The latter three get the least amount of character development, but also have the most distinctive and expressive personal animation styles to make up for it. And as for the slightly-gone-to-seed Peter who becomes Miles' reluctant mentor (I did feel low-key personally attacked by how much they liked to mock his gut and his overeating, because god DAMN I relate too hard), I like how they mashed up a Maguire!Spidey history with a much more Garfield!Spidey personality, more than a bit of an assbutt but he's got a real heart of gold. And while it's become a major sticking point for Spidey-films to not reuse previous villains, Green Goblin and Doc Ock make strong minor antagonists to pale in comparison to the real major threats: Prowler, Tombstone (how did it take me this long to realize Krondon did his voice? Now I can't unhear how much this guy is secretly Tobias Whale), and especially Kingpin, made not only smarter and Norman Osborn-esque, but also even more sympathetic than his already tragic portrayal on Netflix's Daredevil.
About the only complaint I have is - you're probably all gonna hate me for saying this - the visual style. Then again, though, I think it might just be because I went into this movie last night with a big headache. Maybe I'll enjoy it more the second time around, with a less painful head. Though I have to admit that the combo of low frame rate, hand-drawn-looking characters, and photorealistic environments conspired to make a lot of shots in the movie look like you're watching the 3D screening without the special glasses. It's a weird blur that didn't do my aching head any wonders, but of course it's all part of the fun, no?
And yes, this movie's tons of fun, though not without a strong emotional core to rival The Amazing Spider-Man films, or a great grasp of the subtly-foreshadowed twist game to rival Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's fast-paced, loaded with the characteristic Lord and Miller humor we loved in The Lego Movie and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, stuffed to the gills with colorful characters, and even contains some of the best Easter eggs you'll see in any superhero movie ever. Not just the Stan Lee cameo - extra-touching in the wake of the master's recent death too - but also the way that Miles has the names of many creators involved in bringing him to life in his phone contacts. Brian Michael Bendis, of course, and Jason Reynolds, whose Miles Morales: Spider-Man novel made the Pinecone Awards as one of my favorite books of 2017 simply because of how different it was from other Spidey-media, as well as a scarily effective kid-oriented psychological thriller in the vein of Get Out.
As for this year's Pinecone Awards, Into the Spider-Verse is a near-lock for first place with its A+ grade from me.
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
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